With a new look and new SDK, Pebble sets the bar for all the wearables to come.

“It’s like a Casio watch from the '80s.” -John Gruber of Daring Fireball.

If the smartwatch is a fad, then it's one that has made the rounds before. Long before Pebble or even Metawatch, there was the Casio Databank. The chunky model had multiple alarms, countdown timers, and a digital Rolodex that users populated through the built-in keypad. It was an unapologetically chunky, fussy device. Pebble Steel, the successor to the most successful smartwatch so far, is none of those things.

Design

The original Pebble isn’t unattractive, but it does stand out as something other than a regular wristwatch. The plastic body curves around the wrist and comes in several colors. Not all watches are jewelry, and the original Pebble is certainly in this "other" category (even if the device isn't without its merits). The Pebble Steel moves things stylistically further.

The Pebble Steel.

Flat front glass diminishes reflections.

Boxier design is echoed at all angles.

Steel band will be paired with leather.

The flat face and increased thickness makes it more compact.

The front glass gives the Steel more elegance, less novelty.

The analog watch face matches the Pebble Steel's design.

For the playful Pebble, the text watchface fits well.

The now boxy charging connector.

The body is now boxier and made of CNC milled steel. The internals remain the same, as does the e-paper display. Gone is the sweeping piece of clear plastic. The face is now a proper watch glass—made of scratch- and crack-resistant Gorilla Glass in this case. The Steel is smaller than its predecessor in all dimensions, though a few grams heavier thanks to the metal and glass. Our matte black sample came with a matching steel band, though both silver and black models will come packaged with a black leather band. The squishy plastic buttons of the Pebble are replaced by much more satisfying steel buttons whose boxiness echoes the rest of the design. Even the charging connector has gone square to match the look of the Steel.

Elegance is a spectrum. The Steel falls much closer to the well-designed side of the spectrum than its predecessor, but it isn't likely to satisfy the most snobby of watch snobs. That group will have to settle for their Rolexes and Breitlings. For the rest of us, the Pebble Steel is a watch that wouldn’t be conspicuously out of place when worn with either a suit and tie or jeans and a T-shirt. It doesn’t insist on itself like the original. You’ll likely not draw many comments from passersby. Until, that is, your watch buzzes.

Pebble 2.0: Pebble as platform

The Pebble Steel is a tale of both form and function. Pebble updated its software several times throughout 2013, but to coincide with the Steel, it's releasing its Pebble 2.0 software. The software brings two key changes: new APIs and an app store. That software isn’t exclusive to Pebble Steel, as the original Pebble will also receive the update. The internal hardware parity means that both models should provide the same software experience.

There is, however, some bad news for Android users—at launch, the new software will be iOS only. The Android version seems to be coming along, and access to the beta builds is possible through Pebble's developer portal. Those prelaunch builds haven’t been tested for compatibility and don’t accurately reflect the experience users should expect from the final software, so we’ll withhold judgment for now.

The previously spartan Pebble app has been replaced with something much more cohesive and useful. Tutorials guide users through pairing, initial configuration, and establishing a user account, a requirement for using the app store.

The app guides users through initial pairing and configuration.

Earlier apps will be updated to their SDK 2.0 variants as available.

The home screen with the app Locker.

Watch face pop-overs.

The Pebble app store links to relevant companion apps.

The linked companion app for PebbGPS.

The PebbGPS app allows users to send direction data to their watch.

Settings are accessed through the apps pop-over.

The Pebble's potential Fitbit killer.

Apps are organized by category and sorted by date and endorsements ("Hearts").

The Pebble team will periodically highlight certain apps.

Weekly picks and favorites will be updated by the Pebble team.

The app categories and a highlighted app banner.

The watch face portal.

The games are relatively simple but impressive.

The integrated app store follows the design cues of the rest of the app, and it's easy to navigate. Apps are categorized in a sensible manner, and featured apps have colorful banners. Selecting an app from either a banner or list will elicit a pop-over with options to install or favorite the app. Favorites are used in lieu of user reviews, and you can sort by “Most favorited."

The app store is less about curation and more about providing a unified source for watch apps. Pebble performs some degree of app validation, but developers shouldn’t expect the process to take long. It helps that developers are targeting a single hardware platform, but there is a generational culling happening between earlier and later versions of the Pebble SDK. Only SDK 2.0 apps and later will be available on the store. Users whose preferred apps do not have an SDK 2.0 equivalent will be offered the opportunity to not update their phones during initial configuration.

The app selection is surprisingly diverse. The Pebble community has filled far more niches than might have been expected for a fairly nascent platform. The number of apps is demonstrative of the enthusiasm for Pebble. Then again, with reportedly 300,000 units sold, Pebble is likely the largest wearable computing platform by some margin.

The store is divided into watch apps and watch faces, though this categorization presents some confusion. Certain watch faces do more than simply show the time, and the watch faces use the same APIs as the apps that are categorized as "watch apps." It's up to the developers to properly describe and categorize their apps and watch faces, though hopefully Pebble will nudge them in the right direction.

Each watch can store up to eight apps at once, and previously loaded apps that are currently unused are added to your "Locker” for easy access. The locker lacks any form of organization, and there's no clear limit to the number of apps it can house. It's easy to imagine the locker becoming a bit hard to manage after trying out several apps. Apps in the locker are sorted by their most recent use, which is at least something.

Pebble’s previous SDK gave developers enough access to play some games and present users with some glanceable data. What early apps lacked, though, was persistence, sensor data, and the ability to access the Internet. That all changes with SDK 2.0. We’ve reported on the four new APIs and the new corporate partners that are releasing apps, but it’s worth exploring just what these APIs allow.

Update: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that the Pebble Steel was thicker than the original Pebble.

As someone who picked up an original Pebble six months ago, I am a bit jealous of the Pebble Steel, though not enough to shell out another $250. Honestly, the biggest boon for me would be the replacement of the plastic face with glass - my plastic face is, sadly, scratched all to Hell, meaning my resale value is likely close to nil. Still, I love the thing, and I'm excited for version 2.0 of the software. It's a shame that Pebble isn't able to achieve release parity for both iOS and Android, though, as Android still feels like a better/more flexible platform for wearables, due to the closed nature of iOS.

Hopefully, in a couple of years, we'll have my ideal wearable - something with the fitness tracking abilities of a FitBit or Basis, the notifications of the Pebble, and a microphone for Google Now/Siri voice commands - I don't need to make phone calls with my watch, but I'd love to set alarms, reminders, etc.

Also: Bonus to the author for calling Gruber out on his ridiculous commentary of the Pebble Steel.

I also got an original a few months ago, but I am content because I see my purchase as voting for the Pebble (versus folks not buying these things, or buying bad smartwatches). Mine isn't scratched yet, but I'm sure it will be. Low wife acceptance factor, but functionality is great (especially in winter when phone is buried beneath a coat and the watch is right there).

Pebble appears to be the real deal, at least until Apple's watch comes out, and the also-ran watches (samsung's nice feeling but flawed watch and the qualcom one) do something better than they did already.

As someone who picked up an original Pebble six months ago1, I am a bit jealous of the Pebble Steel, though not enough to shell out another $250. Honestly, the biggest boon for me would be the replacement of the plastic face with glass - my plastic face is, sadly, scratched all to Hell

Me too on all three counts. Have a Kickstarter model on my wrist right now, can't quite pull the trigger on the new model, but man, I'd love to replace the scratched up face on my watch with Gorilla Glass.

After doing some research I bought myself a Pebble for Christmas. If this model had been out then I likely wouldn't have bought it due to the cost. But so far this has been a great purchase. Hoping 2.0 arrives soon to make it even more useful.

As a Kickstarter backer, I'm excited for the realization of the device's potential. And for my Steel to hopefully arrive in the next few weeks--the plain black model is a little too casual for office wear.

After the initial novelty of downloading the seemingly few useful apps for it, my Pebble has become basically just a music controller + notification center (oh, and a watch).

But Yelp would be great since I frequently use that on my phone and I think I'll actually try to tinker around with developing my own apps soon once I have some free time, now that you don't always need a companion app open to do things.

As someone who picked up an original Pebble six months ago1, I am a bit jealous of the Pebble Steel, though not enough to shell out another $250. Honestly, the biggest boon for me would be the replacement of the plastic face with glass - my plastic face is, sadly, scratched all to Hell

Me too on all three counts. Have a Kickstarter model on my wrist right now, can't quite pull the trigger on the new model, but man, I'd love to replace the scratched up face on my watch with Gorilla Glass.

NOW we are starting to talk. The original Pebble is a nerd toy. This could actually be a hit. Watches are jewelry. (for guys the only jewelry) they need to look good first.

Wait what?

Setting aside that guys do in fact wear plenty of jewelry (earrings, rings, cuff links, etc)... a wristwatch is a functional item first like 90% of the time. Hardly anybody wears them as a piece of jewelry with any regularity, they wear them due to the convenience of having to only look at your wrist to know the time. If you are really claiming that people wear watches as jewelry first and foremost, then I ask you to explain the ubiquity of cheap plastic watches (because by your logic they should barely even exist).

Anyways, I'm kind of conflicted on this new Pebble. I like the look of the original better (I find it hard to understand why everyone rags on it, as it is absolutely a watch I'd feel comfortable wearing on a date or to a formal event), but having an actual glass surface would be huge. I have already scratched my Pebble and I'm sure it won't be the last time. But I really don't want to pay $250 for an identical device, that I think looks worse, just to get the glass display.

While what they've done so far with on the system level and with apps is impressive, the actual design plain sucks monkey balls. It does. It is a look of a cheap watch from a discount store. Many will disagree, of course, but they should've at least looked at stuff from Movado or Suunto for some inspiration.

The pebble 2.0 is definitely a step in the right direction for smartwatches... but $250... is still too much for a phone companion. I'm still waiting for something with landscape screen a la the Pipboy 3000, just not as boxy.

So how is it as a watch? You know at some point you'll get bored of looking at the miniature screen at apps that you already have on your phone. At that point it becomes a wristwatch.

It has several different faces, so if I get bored with one, I can shift to another one. Otherwise, as Silellak said.. it tells the time. Not sure what else you're looking for there.

But as someone who also uses it on my runs, I find it invaluable as an easy way to see how far and fast I'm going, rather than trying to contort to see what my phone says on my upper arm. There's also the many times that I get a call or text during the day. But instead of reaching in my pocket for my phone, I twist my wrist to see who's calling or what the text says.

What makes it great is that it doesn't try to be more than it needs to be. It's a secondary screen for your phone, that is frequently in a much easier to view position than your phone is. I keep thinking about the Samsung TV ad, where a person has their phone out, sees it ringing, puts it down, looks at their watch to ALSO see who is calling, and answers it there. There's so much "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!" there that it's hard to even quantify. But it highlights just how poorly Samsung has judged the actual needs to be addressed by smart watches, and tried to fill their watch with useless gadgets.

To me, the pebble steel is quiet, understated simplicity. Clean, elegant lines. The logo is a bit of an unfortunate distraction I have to say, but it's nowhere near the "massive" appearance you claim, as the images in this review are macro close-ups. When the watch is on your wrist, the type appears much, much smaller.

It's a little disappointing they did nothing at all with the hardware itself - this would have been a good excuse to include at least a gyro, and possibly a microphone, but I guess you can't have everything. The pebble is already the most well-developed smartwatch out there by a significant margin, so I guess they reasoned they simply don't have to go through the effort and expense of a hardware revision (beyond the casing, naturally.)

One would hope these new javascript APIs and whatnot don't drain the battery too badly - I would have hoped the javascript engine actually runs on your companion smartphone just for the reason of reducing onboard processing and saving battery life on your watch. The review doesn't say exactly how this is implemented, but as the watch can't communicate with the internet without the phone app anyway there's really no reason for javascript processing to run inside the watch. In fact most phone app processing could/should run on the phone. You could have multitasking on the pebble right now if background pebble apps ran in a virtual machine inside the pebble companion app...

It's still a bit big for my tastes, but they're headed in the right direction. Lose the wasted space on the Pebble logo (as others have said), make the bezel a wee bit smaller, shave another couple mm of thickness off, maybe even drop the charging port (for an inductive charger), and then we'll talk. I'm sure the battery is one of the limiting size factors for now, but I'll likely be interested in another revision or two.

NOW we are starting to talk. The original Pebble is a nerd toy. This could actually be a hit. Watches are jewelry. (for guys the only jewelry) they need to look good first.

Wait what?

Setting aside that guys do in fact wear plenty of jewelry (earrings, rings, cuff links, etc)... a wristwatch is a functional item first like 90% of the time. Hardly anybody wears them as a piece of jewelry with any regularity, they wear them due to the convenience of having to only look at your wrist to know the time. If you are really claiming that people wear watches as jewelry first and foremost, then I ask you to explain the ubiquity of cheap plastic watches (because by your logic they should barely even exist).

Anyways, I'm kind of conflicted on this new Pebble. I like the look of the original better (I find it hard to understand why everyone rags on it, as it is absolutely a watch I'd feel comfortable wearing on a date or to a formal event), but having an actual glass surface would be huge. I have already scratched my Pebble and I'm sure it won't be the last time. But I really don't want to pay $250 for an identical device, that I think looks worse, just to get the glass display.

I think that most people wear watches as a fashion statement. It says "I'm an important person and I have things to do, so I have this watch to keep me on schedule and oh by the way I spent $200 on it because that's how important my time is".

I hardly see people wear cheap watches these days.

I think that most of the time a watch is unnecessary because it's not much more inconvenience to pull your phone out and check the time. But I think a Pebble is necessary (or at least more necessary) because if you add up the number of times to pull your phone out to check the time/text messages/interesting news/emails that does start to add up.

I would be interested -- if I still wore a watch. Watches used to serve a function (telling time), but once cell phones came along that function was usurped. The phone has atomic clock accuracy, a bigger display, and is lighted. As soon as I got my first phone, my watch was dumped in a drawer somewhere and hasn't seen the light of day since. I always found watches to be a pain in the wrist and absolutely do not miss wearing one.

This is not off topic because I am not the only person who feels this way. I don't know a single person under 40 who still wears a watch. They have become jewelery or -- like this one -- geekware. As such, I think it is a relatively small market that is going to be found to be extremely fickle. Not a market I'd want to stake my savings on.

The only way I see these having much of a market is if they can incorporate real utility that can't be easily achieved by other methods. I personally can't think of any kind of "killer app" that would get me to start wearing a watch again, but that doesn't mean someone won't think of one.

Until then, I still have hairless areas on my wrist to remind me that I once wore a watch.

NOW we are starting to talk. The original Pebble is a nerd toy. This could actually be a hit. Watches are jewelry. (for guys the only jewelry) they need to look good first.

Wait what?

Setting aside that guys do in fact wear plenty of jewelry (earrings, rings, cuff links, etc)... a wristwatch is a functional item first like 90% of the time. Hardly anybody wears them as a piece of jewelry with any regularity, they wear them due to the convenience of having to only look at your wrist to know the time. If you are really claiming that people wear watches as jewelry first and foremost, then I ask you to explain the ubiquity of cheap plastic watches (because by your logic they should barely even exist).

Anyways, I'm kind of conflicted on this new Pebble. I like the look of the original better (I find it hard to understand why everyone rags on it, as it is absolutely a watch I'd feel comfortable wearing on a date or to a formal event), but having an actual glass surface would be huge. I have already scratched my Pebble and I'm sure it won't be the last time. But I really don't want to pay $250 for an identical device, that I think looks worse, just to get the glass display.

I hardly see people wear cheap watches these days.

For me, that's because cheap watches look like cheap watches. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a report came out showing that the high-end watch manufacturers were the only players in the low-end watch market (think anything under $80) and deliberately made them look like crap to drive up interest in their flagship models.

But they shouldn't. If they have any kind of style that is and are older than 21.

Or are married, just to give one ubiquitous (and universally accepted) example. Men wearing jewelry is not that uncommon, it just isn't of the necklace or earring form most of the time.

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Agree to disagree. I wouldnt' go out of the door without mine but I reflexively pull out my phone to check the time most of the time. (More convenient than rolling the sleeve up in winter. ) Your mileage may vary

Fair enough. Like you said, agree to disagree... I find my watch about 1000000x (totally substantiated number and not at all pulled out of my ass) more convenient than my phone to tell time, just cause it's right there. I don't have to whip it out of a pocket or anything, I just turn my wrist and there is the time.

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People who buy cheap plastic watches will not pay 250$ for a watch that duplicates something their phone can do

Maybe, maybe not. But I think that the convenience added by a Pebble (or similar device) is something which would take many by surprise. It's not in your face screaming "This is so much better", but once you adjust to it (as I have with mine), it's hard to imagine going back to having to take your phone out to check notifications.

Also, those people are who the $150 model is for.

But this is off-point a bit. I wasn't saying that cheap plastic watches are evidence that people will buy Pebbles, I'm just saying that they are evidence that there is a sizable market of people who buy watches which can in no way be construed as jewelry or a fashion statement.